Synopsis
Employees who complain and consistently struggle to complete their work as expected are like a bad apple in a bushel of apples. Eventually, if uncorrected, they will contaminate other employees, causing the problems they create to spread. Allow this to go unchecked always leads to decreases in sales and cost increases. Every time expenses increase and sales decrease, you are in for immediate cash flow and profitability problems.
Dealing fairly and decisively with employees who fail to meet minimum performance standards is one of the most challenging aspects of being a business owner. Progressive discipline is the third component of your Contributions Management Process or CMP. Its purpose is to either help those struggling to contribute to business results earn the money you are paying them or move them out reasonably and decisively from your employ.
The contribution evaluation process starts with employees knowing their specific accountabilities through Job Descriptions or Task and Duties Lists. Once this is understood, the next step is continuously planned feedback through scheduled evaluations of their job contributions.
Evaluating an employee’s contributions is never easy and is more complicated when warranted by a substandard review or progressive discipline. If done thoughtfully, a serious discussion about contribution improvement can be viewed as positive by the employee if they perceive it as a form of help to improve job contributions and protect their employment.
Progressive discipline is one of the most important management tools in your company
Employees who consistently “test” company boundaries, break the rules are like a bad apple in a bushel of apples. Initially, this often starts as a type of power game, “the boss isn’t going to tell me how to run my life,” or they don’t care, or most ironically, they don’t know the rules. Eventually, if uncorrected, they will contaminate other employees, and the problems will spread.
Let there be no mistake here – a failure of an employee to follow and comply with basic rules or procedures is a failure of management. Suppose the failure is as simple as being late or failing to turn in paperwork in a neat, legible, and timely fashion. Either management failed to communicate the rule, or management failed to enforce it. In either case, the failure to meet minimum contribution expectations creates downstream problems for each employee and customer affected by the failure to be on time or turn in legible paperwork on time.
The only person who can fix employee performance issues is the immediate supervisor. Fixing it early will make it easier. Delaying action makes it more complicated, if not impossible.
The single greatest destroyer of morale and hence companies is the application of inconsistent discipline. On a side note, if you ever end up in court, you will find yourself on shaky ground and loose footing when you try to explain to a judge why you haphazardly applied your rules.
Employees get used to demanding and strict rules or light and sloppy ones. They go with the flow. It is when things are intermittently applied that management gets accused of “favoritism,” which invariably leads to the attitudes of “what does it matter if I do a good job – or not” – all that counts is being politically correct, or the managers “pet.”
Performance improvement begins with positive behavior change goals
The best way to help struggling employees is to help them formulate positive behavior change goals. Unfortunately, most supervisors negatively frame their concerns about a poor contributing employee by focusing on what they are doing wrong rather than doing better.
The better way is to think through what they need to do to improve their contributions to the business. Instead of saying, “What are they doing wrong?” try asking yourself, “In what ways do they need to improve to contribute more effectively?” Here are some examples:
Rather Than Saying: | Try Saying: |
You have a poor attitude. | Your attitude makes it hard for me to work with you. |
You have a very short fuse. | It will help if you control your temper better. |
You don’t care. | It would be best if you cared more about your work. |
You are too rigid. | It would help if you were more flexible. |
You are careless. | It would be best if you were more careful. |
You are never on time. | You need to be more punctual. |
You are much too fussy. | You need to understand better the difference between essential and unimportant work matters. |
In general, it is better to ask for more of something rather than less of something. For example, it is better to ask a person to be more rigid rather than less flexible. It is better to ask for more of a positive attitude than less of a negative attitude.
If you run into difficulty answering the question, “What does the person need to do less of to improve?” try asking yourself, “What is the person going to have to do more of to improve?”
As you identify specific behavior changes for each job performance improvement goal, you want to see them adopted by the employee. Just stating the behavior change goal is not enough. For example, the following goal is set for you: “You need to establish more credibility with your subordinates,” or what about, “You need to be more confident when you express yourself at staff meetings.”
Take a close look at these two goal statements your manager set for you. They are certainly much better than negative statements like “You do not have the trust of your staff” or “You are too timid at management team meetings.” While the first set of goals ask for more rather than less, they don’t communicate the Supervisor’s intentions or why the employee should care. I.e., what does the Supervisor mean by “more credibility” or “more confident” is not clear?
The reason phrases like those above do not convey much meaning is they fail to describe observable behavior. No one can see someone: Establish more credibility with their direct reports, but you can see someone:
- Look their subordinates in the eye when they talk to them.
- Speak to their subordinates in a direct, informal manner.
- Ask their direct reports for their ideas on how something ought to be done.
- Openly praise a subordinate for a job well done.
You cannot see someone: Be more confident expressing themselves in a management meeting, but you can see someone:
- Sit up straight when they talk.
- Speak in an audible tone of voice.
- Make suggestions that are different from those already proposed.
- Disagree with the ideas and suggestions of other team members.
- Give specific reasons why the department ought to take a specific course of action.
Once you have established a positive behavior change goal for an employee, the next step is to identify the specific behavior changes the employee would have to make to convince you the goal has been achieved. For example:
- Problem: Employee “A” never listens to me; they usually misunderstand what I want them to do.
- Goal: They need to be better at listening to me and following my instructions.
- Question: What will this employee have to do to convince me that the goal has been achieved?
- Possible answers to the question:
- When I ask them to do something in a certain way, they will do it in the way that I ask them, unless they have checked with me in advance about doing it differently.
- They will look me in the eye when talking instead of down or around the room.
- They will repeat back to me their understanding of an assignment before they begin it.
- They will ask for clarification of my instructions, saying things like, “How do you mean that?” and “Can you give me an example of what you mean by that?”
Follow these examples to make talking specifically, fairly, and decisively about contribution improvement goals easier. This is the best way to help your employees see how you are trying to help improve their results, not criticize them. Again, the goal of progressive discipline is higher profits and improved cash flows. It’s not to set up people to be fired.
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